“All night I paced the room and swore and raved alternately. But with the morning came calmer reflection. Retribution would overtake them, I concluded, if left to themselves; I would not put my own neck in jeopardy for the sake of such despisable wretches as they seemed to me. Besides, a softer feeling, in spite of me, would creep into my heart, when I thought of the happy past, and I felt I could not take the life of one who had been dearer than all else to me—who was now the mother of my innocent children. They would be from this time motherless. I would not make them also fatherless, but would keep my life blameless and unblemished for their sweet sakes. The stain of their mother’s fall would be dark enough. “She returned home that day. I shall never forget how sweet and fair she looked as she tripped from her carriage up the steps and into the room where I stood like an avenging Nemesis. Her bright hair was blown into little rings about her forehead, and a smile wreathed her sweet lips, which expected the kiss of greeting. “See,” he said as he took from his desk a miniature and handed it to Nathan, “was she not beautiful? And that picture was but a poor representation of her, for art cannot produce on ivory the thousand pretty changes of expression which constituted one of the chief charms of her face.” Nathan looked attentively at the fair, sweet face of the picture, and agreed as to its beauty. The Major continued: “I met her sternly, and she must have seen in my face something of what I was about to utter, for the smile left her cheeks and gave place to a look of terror indescribable. “‘Agnes,’ I began, ‘do not dare to face with a smile the husband you have betrayed, wronged, and made a cuckold of in his own house; miserable woman, that should ever have lived to become so low and vile a creature, with so fair a face!’ She gazed at me in fear and horror and I verily believe she for the time thought me insane. She pressed both hands to her heart as though to quiet its fluttering,—ah, God! I can see her yet,—and then gasped, ‘Markham, for Christ’s sake, what do you mean? What, oh! what has happened?’ “I cannot describe accurately the scene which followed. I know I flaunted the letters in her face, I accused her of her treachery, and called her to account in the worst possible terms, such a maddened brute was I, and refused to listen to anything she tried to say in denial or palliation of her guilt.